This attic was hot. Like… hard to stand in for long hot.

We got out to this Las Vegas home because the homeowner was frustrated with how long the AC was running every single day. He said by July the system basically never shut off until late at night, and honestly after about two minutes in the attic, you could understand why.

The heat was just sitting up there.

The old insulation wasn’t doing much anymore

At first glance it didn’t look terrible.

That’s the thing.

There technically was insulation in the attic already, but it had settled down quite a bit over the years and coverage was uneven almost everywhere we looked. Some spots were thin. Other areas around penetrations and corners barely had anything left at all.

You could feel the temperature difference standing near certain sections. Almost like opening an oven for a second and then shutting it again.

Not great.

We went with a two-layer system

For this house we installed radiant barrier along the roof deck and then added fresh blow-in fiberglass across the attic floor.

That combination works really well out here in Las Vegas because the two materials are doing completely different jobs.

The radiant barrier helps reflect a huge amount of the radiant heat coming off the roof before it starts building up inside the attic space. Then the fiberglass slows down whatever heat still makes it through so it doesn’t push into the living space below.

One handles the heat above.

The other helps hold the cooler air where it belongs.

Simple setup honestly, but it works.

The attic felt different before we even finished

Kind of strange, but we notice this on some jobs.

By the time we were wrapping up, the attic already felt less harsh than when we first climbed up there earlier that morning. Still warm obviously. It’s Las Vegas in the summer. But the sharp radiating heat coming off the roof decking had dropped off noticeably once the radiant barrier was in place.

That part mattered.

Homeowners usually notice the upstairs first

The homeowner actually laughed because the first thing he noticed afterward wasn’t the thermostat.
It was the hallway upstairs.

He said it stopped feeling “sticky” in the afternoon. That was his exact word. Usually, homeowners explain it differently every time, but it’s almost always the same issue underneath it all. The house finally starts holding temperature more evenly instead of constantly fighting attic heat all day long.

That’s usually how it goes.

Honestly the AC was working against the house

And you see this all over Las Vegas and Henderson.

People assume the AC unit itself is failing because it runs nonstop, but sometimes the equipment is just losing the battle because the attic is cooking the house from above every afternoon. The system keeps trying to catch up but never really gets ahead of it.

Kind of like trying to cool your house while leaving the front door cracked open a little.

Not exactly efficient.

The little details matter more than people think

We spent extra time making sure the fiberglass coverage stayed consistent around edges and tighter attic areas because those are usually the spots where heat sneaks through later. Honestly, rushed attic jobs are easy to spot once you’ve seen enough of them.

And this one took a little longer than expected because of how uneven the original insulation had become over time.

Worth it though.

If your upstairs rooms stay hot all summer or your AC feels like it never gets a break, your attic insulation might be the real issue. Learn more about our attic insulation services and what works best for desert climates like Las Vegas. Call us or visit our website for a FREE evaluation!